


Until everything dark turns bright.

by dankobah



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Canon Compliant, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Episode 9 idealized, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Gratuitous use of Scenery descriptions, Post-Canon, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-30
Packaged: 2019-04-29 07:06:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14467533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dankobah/pseuds/dankobah
Summary: “What sort of alliance is unbreakable ?” Her familiarity with history, while minimal, hadn’t painted a pretty picture of previous attempts at armistice.Kylo waits a moment before answering."Marriages.  Hard to break except for death or betrayal." He said.  Political marriages were dicey, typically arranged in eons past.  Sometimes they ended with death, or prosperity.They cannot afford to fail.--------------------------------An RP fic between two authors, following the canon events of The Last Jedi, and beyond,





	1. Unexpected.

**Author's Note:**

> This is an RP style fic, for those of you who are unfamiliar with that, its role playing. Where each of our two authors write a character, and so the pacing, dialogue, and set up or from multiple POVs. This first chapter is sort of a test run, seeing how well it reads and if people enjoy the hard work we've poured into this. Ideally, it still reads like a story, and we hope that everyone enjoys the one we're telling. 
> 
> Enjoy !

_ Supreme Leader.  All hail the Supreme Leader.  _

 

The words rang uncomfortably between his ears, filling his head like a poison gas.  It made sleep impossible (more than it had been already), and it made being inside his skin almost maddening. He couldn’t stop seething, couldn’t stop gripping the pillow and ripping at it in frustration as his mind twisted and warped around the last 3 weeks.  

 

A coronation, a title being laid at his feet by default.  The  _ girl _ … He couldn’t even pretend to call her that anymore, his brain protesting feebly.  _  Rey, Rey, Rey _ .  

 

It was an incessant incantation in the walls of his brain, swirling around so fast he couldn’t grasp why the fuck he needed her. He was the Supreme Leader, placed on a pedestal to wipe out her and the Resistance.  Only this would be the second try, as Hux loved to remind. The second try, after the first try ended with Luke Skywalker dematerializing like the stinging salt crystals on Crait.

 

Crait was when he last saw her, kneeling in the control room in the cavernous base that they had fled.  He had been too preoccupied by Skywalker, by the haze of the man whose blood he had thirsted to be spilled.  Anything to maim Skywalker, to make him hurt. 

 

She had stared at him, like she had stared at him when he had offered her the world.   _ His  _ world.  What should’ve been theirs, side-by-side.  A New Order, a new way of doing things. But she had pressed the button, the ramp to the falcon pulling up as she did.  It shut him out, shut their bond for what he thought would be good. 

 

He hadn’t felt her, hadn’t had her tickle at the back of his head or find her sifting through heads.  Rey was gone, shut out. They were enemies now, Kylo Ren a war leader and Rey a symbol of hope. They were both their own pedestals, and he knew she didn’t  _ want  _ to be the Resistance hero. Just like he didn’t want to be the Supreme Leader, but knowing it was the alternative to Armitage Hux.  Hux was a bomb and go, a firepower type. This war had enough shelled, both sides taking heavy losses after pursuing the Resistance evacuation and Crait. 

 

They weren’t in shambles, but he could feel the ship sinking.  It was slow going, and all the heads on the ship were thinking it. Sometimes he wondered if she stared up at the same space he did, searching among the stars for the hard answers.  

 

Or if she searched for him through heads, like he did as he leaned up on his elbows in the too-big bed.  It was cold on either side, enveloping him in discomfort. This was passive, too late in the cycle of the ship’s day for him to be trying too hard.  

 

He was delirious, weak tear trails streaking his angular cheeks.  His back was streaked in sweat despite the cold. His eyes focused on the lightsaber on his bedside table, his brain doing the unconscious sifting and sorting through the minds it had bonded with.  Most of them were gone now, closed off by choice or necessity.A warmness seemed to bleed into his skin as he paused, his breath catching as he looked at the lightsaber. 

 

Then all the sound, the ship’s typical hum, the hum of the automatic shower in the refresher went silent.  His eyes looked up, honey brown hyper focusing on her form. 

 

He sat up with a start, pushing his bare back up against the headboard. 

 

“Rey-” he started, not thinking of how it looked or what they were doing.  He didn’t care what time it was, or how delirious he was.

 

Rey’s familiar with this, the hyperfixation born of pain; focusing solely on repairing her lightsaber, parsing through the ancient jedi texts, and providing morale wherever she can. 

 

The Resistance doesn’t feel like home, and despite dealing with hundreds of its newest members daily, Rey has never been more alone. Finn notices it, he’s trying to assimilate Rey into the social structure; the friends made on the backbone of desperation. 

 

She just can’t quite  _ fit _ , butting heads with Poe at every turn -- they both have incredibly different outlooks on the avenues the Resistance should take, and they can’t find common ground through the thick of their respective tempers. 

She’s hiding out in her room, it’s a small little bungalow set against an outcropping of trees - away from the main encampment. She liked the isolation, was familiar with the quiet and the calm it afforded her, a break from the noise of a bustling rebellion. 

 

Her frustration ebbs into a  _ whump  _ through the force, sending tools clattering to the floor below. Rey groans, and just as she moves to retrieve them, the sensation of eyes on her, the stillness as the world falls into an impossible silence -- every sound muffled, yet amplified. 

 

Her breath catches, she knows what she’ll see, or rather  _ who  _ , if she turns around. 

 

“Don’t,  _ Ben _ .” Venomous, but her voice trembles. 

 

“I thought this was over with.”  _ That I wouldn’t have to see you again. _ Rey grips the edge of her table, knuckles turning white from the pressure. She can’t look at him. 

 

She can’t . She won’t. 

 

She  _ does _ . 

 

“Or I suppose its _ Supreme Leader _ now. You’ll have to forgive me, I don’t have a  _ congratulatory  _ gift.” Rey’s eyes rove over him, attempting to be passive, perhaps even aloof but she’s shaking and she’s tired and it  _ hurts _ . 

 

She takes a seat on the edge of her own bed, as he lies in what she imagines is his. 

 

“Is there no way to end this? A force bond?” 

  
  


Her pain was metallic in his mouth, rolling around and sticking to his teeth in a nauseating way.  He could feel it like her, the ebb and flow of her pain. He would’ve feasted on it before, used it to strengthen him and his bond to the force.  To overpower her like he once tried. 

 

But he couldn’t, hitting him in the stomach as she said  _ Ben _ .  He hated that name, he wanted it to die when Han Solo did.  He wanted it to die with Snoke, with Skywalker. But she was alive, so it lived.  It lived so she could spite him with it, taunt him with it.

 

His fingertips dug into the sheets beneath him, gripping and ripping as he tried very hard to listen to her.  If she thought this was over, she had not studied with Skywalker enough. Skywalker would’ve told her that Force Bonds were until death, and even then the unfortunate person in the pair got the pain from the death.

 

Snoke had wound them together and never cared what it meant.  They couldn’t untangle themselves, and Kylo didn’t even want to try to.  It was selfish, unfair to both of them. But he couldn’t untangle with her.  He couldn’t. 

 

Supreme Leader sounds like the crack of a segmented whip across his spine when it comes from her lips.  Her mocking, her distaste rips into his flesh and yanks. He only lashes back. “I could say the same,  _ Resistance Hero _ ." He snapped, venom biting into the statement more than necessary. 

 

It took him a shuddering breath to calm down, to move back to the task at hand of studying her.  She looked as tired as him, dark circles peeking through her lightening skin. She hadn’t been outside as much as she used to be, as a Jakku desert rat. 

 

Her question makes him look down. "Death.  I supposed that’ll come soon for either faction though.” He said.  War was not something he liked to think about right now, not when she stared at him and this was the first contact in 2 months.  

 

“Either one of us is just dragging out the inevitable.  Your resistance especially." he said. He didn't want to say it, he didn't want to bring up the offer of the galaxy again.  She had denied it for a reason. But he kept staring at her, his fingers numbing on his grip of the sheets. 

He wasn’t the first person to call her a hero --- though he might be the first to have said it with hate -- and he won’t be the last, but Rey’s resented each and every time its passed from someone’s lips to her ear. She’s  _ not  _ a hero, she hasn’t done anything  _ heroic  _ . 

 

She’s going to argue that point, until it spills into a very real, and raw brand of pain. Rey flinches visibly, recoiling inward like it might shield her from what he’s said, or the truth she can feel on the vine of thorns coiled around it. “Death, then.” 

 

It felt too real, and yet far enough away she can pretend it’ll never happen. That it won’t come down to just them two, her saber and his colliding for a final time. Rey swallows the bile that rises up her throat, 

 

“Do you think in another life, we aren’t like this? Aren’t at odds, aren’t enemies.” It’s wistful, but she’s tired and her heart feels like a lead weight in her chest. She wonders, sometimes, if they could have been friends. This connection between them runs taut, a string drawn over a pit of flame and she’s squirming from the heat of it, at odds with the chill this ominous promise set in her veins. 

 

Rey sighs a little, shifting, her regulation cot squeaks under her weight. They stand on opposite sides in a war, so she should be overcome with vitriol and hate at the sight of him, even compromised like he is. Instead, Rey only feels shame, and pain, a familiar anguish that brings back sharp memories of her crying herself to sleep every night over a family that would never return. 

 

She’d known all about waiting. All her life, it defined her. 

 

And ever the girl damned to make the same mistakes over and over again, Rey can’t resist waiting for him, too. 

 

“I wish I could have known you without war. Without Starkiller burning up under our feet or a throne room in flames ... What would the mighty Kylo Ren be like if he was surrounded by peace?” 

  
  


Her acceptance of death wasn’t unlike his, though more perturbing to any naked eye to this conversation.  Though everything about them was backwards to the naked eye, two equals in their respective camps bonded by the Force. 

 

Most Jedi and Sith masters would frown at it, bonding with your equal in the light or dark.  But there was something reassuring about it with Rey, even if she looked like she was ready to rip his throat out mid-word. 

 

Her question caught him off guard, of another life.  Another life. Kylo had been wishing for another life, dreaming of different circumstances for a long time now.  It didn’t make the climb back to reality any easier, or keep the deep painful thrum in his intestines at bay. 

 

“Force equals in another circumstance tend to be lovers or foes only.” He said.  It was a fact, coming out of his mouth as clinically as he could make it sound. 

The balance of light and dark made for lovers better than foes, the two canceling each other out. She expands on it, and he takes a moment to card through his hair.  Her vulnerability seeps into the air, and Kylo feeds on that for confidence.

Not like he had to posture, she had already seen the tears streaked down his cheeks and his scars.

 

What would he be like if Snoke had never wound into him so young?  Kylo didn’t remember a head without the man, any thought under deep scrutiny that would make him scream.  He didn’t remember being treated normally, droids having the inability to love him wholly as a baby. He needed his parents for that, and they were dead. 

 

Glossing over that, he stared at her.  “I think…I think everything would be different.  This has been my everything, my whole life.” He admitted finally, looking at his knuckles.  They were bruised from sparring today, after he had pounced on the Stormtrooper and laid into his face. 

 

“There’s still a way for everything to be different.” He found himself saying.  Was there? There was, unorthodox and never agreeable. 

It is exhausting to hold onto hope as it sifts through her fingers; the sand of a desert that compounds in Rey’s lungs, of long lonely nights reflected by her starry, wet eyes. She hates it, hates  _ him  _ for every reason she doesn’t, that passion burning in her veins does not belong here, wearing his name. He’s her enemy, her opposite, the marquis of her damnation and she wants desperately to be free from him, from whatever they’re playing at. 

 

But then he says it can still be different , and Rey’s eyes lift from where they’d been surveying her lap impassively. 

 

“How?” Her voice aches, betraying the ten thousand things she wouldn’t tell him, can’t tell him, but her heart feels like it just might be breaking over and over and over again. She’s drawn back into a memory; of a throne room, of a promise, of a  _ please _ ?

 

What would have happened if she’d taken his hand? 

 

She’s only known loneliness, of fighting tooth and nail to clamber out from under the weight of her past.  _ Kill it, if you have to _ . He was a warmth, a comfort, a blinding light swathed in an impenetrable darkness. Kylo Ren was her enemy yes, but he’s also the only person who knew her, knew anything about her, and saw her as something other than a pillar on which to build. 

 

Rey feels the tears fall before she can stop them. 

 

“How can it be different?” A voice echoes in her head : you’re not alone . But she was, she’s more alone than she’s ever been because, before this, before Ben, Rey had been on her own, she was one part of herself, whole. 

 

Now she was two halves and one was missing, ripped from her, leaving a wound in its wake. She’s hurting. She’s hurting and she wants to blame him for it, but she’s already scarred him, so its fitting that he left his mark, too. 

 

“You promised I wasn’t alone.” Rey whispers, voice thick with the ferocity of her contained emotions, 

 

“Why do I feel it now more than ever?” 

  
  


She’s willing to hear him out, and his heart accelerates.  Kylo hadn’t gotten this far in the line of thinking, and a small bead of sweat dripped down the back of his neck.  Her voice breaks as she asks though, and it only makes him that much more inclined. 

 

Anything to make the twist of the knife in his gut stop.  Anything to keep her here with him. 

 

Fuck the galaxy, fuck Hux, fuck everything the First Order had set up.  They were prepared for no terms, only annihilation for the Resistance. But it didn’t have to be that, it had been that every time before they had gotten here. 

 

This could be different.  Kylo watches the tears push trails down her cheeks, her nose wrinkle as she sniffed.  His scar throbbed as she did, like it had been all these months since she had left it on him.  He felt himself straighten up, trying to keep a measured face. 

 

“You and me, no armies or strategists.  Just a conversation. Something.”He finally said.  It was the only option. Rey would never agree if he brought Hux, and he didn’t want to make terms with Poe Dameron. He wanted terms with  _ her _ , he wanted a surrender or an agreement.

 

“Neutral ground is Naboo, in the Outer Rim.  I know a place we could go, I just need you…” he trailed off.  He needed her. Yes, he needed her more than he needed this. 

 

“I need you to agree.  I need confidentiality if you agree.  No one can know we’re doing this, or they’ll kill us.” He finished. 

 

It felt like the Throne Room all over again, how he extended a hand and  _ begged  _ her in no certain terms.  He had said please, he had tried so hard.  But she had denied it. 

 

What made this different?  What made this the time for her to agree? 

 

“If we can’t come to terms…we’ll figure out something to break this bond.  I can’t feel you die.”

 

Rey cannot deny the thrill that runs up her spine -- something like a promise, something larger and grander than either of them. She smiles, but it's sad, using the heel of her hand to wipe away the traitorous tears, she hates how raw she is around him, how vulnerable, exposed. 

 

There’s an undeniable thread of intimacy in sharing a space with someone so wholly and entirely opposite of herself, and yet as much her equal. 

 

She tugs on the hem of her thin tunic, shivering - the world they’re on is primarily a rain-forest, humid and hot, the air is thick and yet she can’t shake this chill that’s left goosebumps over her bare skin. 

 

“If I agree,” Rey phrases this carefully, it almost feels like a noose tightening around her neck, damning her to something indefinable. Rey feels hope, and terror, coiling roundabout, compounding in on itself until she cannot breathe without it tasting like him, smelling like him, it feels like she’s been hollowed out and every empty space was filled with Ben. 

 

“--- I’ll only go if I tell Leia. I cannot keep it from her, you know that. But she won’t betray us to anyone. I just can’t have her thinking I up and left.” Rey pauses, and swallows, “She deserves better than believing I abandoned her too.” It wasn’t meant to hurt him, but Rey cannot be the final nail in her coffin. 

 

“But yes.” She nods, slowly at first but then with a bit more surety, “I’ll meet with you. Just you.” No first order. No resistance. Her heart is hammering so loudly she’s not sure if he heard her. Rey stands, hesitant, and reaches out her hand, 

 

“--- where in Naboo?” 

 

Her pause makes him wait with shallow breathing, feeling like his lungs could cave if she said no. 

 

If she said no, there was nothing to look forward to.  There was nothing to aspire to except for killing one another.  And Kylo can't...do that. He doesn't know why usually able to spill blood so easy.  It gave him power every time he did, something for others to be proud of. 

 

But he'll be damned if even a drop of blood from her is inflicted by him.  He'll resist that as long as possible. But she begins speaking, getting him to look up.  It's a tentative, 'if I agree' but its still words. 

 

Then the words turn to a place he never would expect, the subject presumed dead in his mind. 

 

A shudder involuntarily rolls through his spine and he feels as if he's going to throw up.  He crushes the empathy, his bubbling relief also going with it. Leia Skywalker being alive complicates everything, he reminded. 

 

But she agrees, Rey, staring at him as she stands and offers her hand.  Kylo is more than happy to stand up like a shot, clasping it as if it were oxygen.  The locale only brings one place up, from when he was very small.

 

“Varykino.  The Amidala's have a lake villa we can use as a rendezvous.  It'll hide ships and it's been empty for years.” he said. He knew this because he checked on it, constantly wondering if Snoke had decimated everything he loved. 

 

Clasping her hand, even if it was agreeing on something, was something he didn't know he needed. 


	2. Varykino.

Rey’s unfamiliar with Naboo ( and ... well, almost every planet ), but she’s heard Leia speak wistfully of childhood memories, of a Lake and a sky painted lilac by its three bright moons. She finds a smile, its soft, subdued, but it’s there and Kylo’s uncharacteristically to blame for it. 

 

The force draws shut and the silence to follow it feels somehow louder than anything she’s ever heard before. It’s almost poignant, and Rey moves to prepare for what is likely the  _ worst  _ idea she’s ever had. Or  _ he’s  _ had. Or its an amalgam of their respective Bad Ideas (of which they’ve had plenty). 

 

She packs her meager possessions, and stares at the saber she’d been tinkering with -- there’s a flutter of excitement, she wants to show Ben what she’s crafted, but then that’s stomped down by the weight of what they’re actually doing. 

 

It’s  _ treason _ . There’s no pretty way to color it, it’s treason, like actual, real-life treason. The Resistance is a political faction, just like the First Order, and they’re going behind the backs of their respective leaders to reach an agreement that neither has been made aware of. 

 

The Falcon hums to life, only after Rey speaks to Leia, (Leia doesn’t approve of her decision, but respects it, and told Rey to  _ ‘look after the dresses’ _ , whatever that means).

 

With an unfamiliar flight path and no co-pilot to speak of, the journey is tumultuous at best. Rey nearly crashes on five separate occasions before she even attempts the landing, and doing so on a private strip is arguably the hardest thing she’s ever done. But Rey manages it, (  _ kinda  _ ), and sits in the quiet of the powered-off freighter for longer than is strictly necessary. She’s gathering her bearings until she finds the strength to step onto the planet’s surface. 

 

It’s beautiful, it quite  _ literally  _ stole her breath away, and she’s only distracted from it by the sight of something else equally, if not more captivating. “ _ Ben _ .” She gasps a little bit and palms her saber on reflex. Her posture relaxes after a moment of tense quiet, and she steps forward, pauses, and stands impossibly still - unsure of what to say, or do, next. 

 

At least until she sees a handful of cloaked, masked figures lurking behind him, and she screams. 

 

“You kriffing  **_liar_ ** .” 

 

It is overwhelming how fast everything can go to hell. It has been only 48 hours since he has force-bonded with Rey again when the throne room is stormed by Hux. 

 

“You presume to lie to me that Snoke died at the hand of the girl?!” he screamed, red in the face while thrusting a finger at the holo.  

 

It is the footage of the elevator ride, the one with Rey in bondage and the two speaking. He knew how it looks.  Kylo knew that he only has a measured amount of time before Hux did something they would both regret. 

 

So he threw the man against the floor, the Knights of Ren only following his rushed form from the Throne Room.  They will follow him through anything, Hux has no power over them. 

 

“Prepare my ship and flight course for Naboo.  Kill anyone who intervenes.” he snaps, two Knights turning the opposite way to meet his demands.  He has run to his room then, throwing things into an already half-packed bag. 

 

It leads to him standing on the strip of landing space on Varykino, contained within the Amidala property.  The TIE silencer he has flown over here has been stashed somewhere safe. The Falcon has been sitting here for quite some time before he makes it over to it, giving Kylo the opportunity to look at the ship from his childhood.  He learned to fly it at 14, the first ship he’d ever flown. 

 

Now it is Rey's, unofficially and officially.  The hull opened up, the ramp coming down to touch the ground.  Rey steps out, and his breath caught in his throat. She grabs her lightsaber as she noticed him, and he doesn’t do the same.  She won’t strike him, his suspicions were correct as she stares at him instead. 

 

Then she raises the alarm, staring at the Knights behind him.  They were stoic, silent, and all watching her.  _ Liar  _ stung like a slap, and he draws his lightsaber in case she lunges. 

 

“Hux staged a coup and I fled, they came with.  They're indebted to serve me and the best form of protection we can have out here,” he says, his voice serious.  They won’t leave him if she asked. 

 

“Ask them anything and they'll do it.” he then points out. 

 

Rey wants to believe him, but he’d strictly built the outline of this based on mutual  _ trust _ , and raw honesty --  _ tell no one or they’ll kill us _ . 

 

She feels vulnerable and afraid, she’s outnumbered, if he chooses to turn on her. Paranoia bred in the heart of the desert tells her:  _ she’s alone _ , and she’s surrounded. Ben won’t hurt her, of that she’s certain. 

 

Rey’s not so sure about Kylo Ren. 

 

“A coup.” She phrases this like she doesn’t understand, but that’s only because she actually  _ doesn’t _ . Political machinations are beyond her comprehension, but she knows enough to feel his terror bleeding into the force between them. 

 

Rey wants to comfort him, but she’s not sure what that qualifies as. They’re enemies still, and until they make peace, it is unlikely that they’ll ever be anything else. “These are ---- your knights?” Bright eyes full of fear, skip over the metallic helmets, each an impassive mask that doesn’t betray anything underneath.  

 

“No offense but,” Rey clips her saber back to her belt, and chews on the inside of her cheek, “The only thing I’d like for them to do is  _ leave _ . They’re all ... sort of terrifying? I want to see  _ you _ , Ben.” That last bit is added with a nervous twinge in the pit of her gut, and she closes the distance between them, her pack slung over her shoulder and her chin dipped, eyes tracing the smooth stone under her feet. 

 

“It’s good to see you,” Rey adds after a moment of silence, it’s true, but she shouldn’t necessarily say it, because everything is already complicated enough. “Even under the circumstances.”  _ War _ . War’s the circumstance. War is the thing that weighs heavily on each and every one of them. 

 

“Can we go inside?” She looks to the building behind him, curious. 

 

Rey doesn't trust him, that much is obvious with her wary look.  Her bit lip and scrunched nose indicated as much, and the way she toyed with the lightsaber on her hip. He notes that she actually has one now, different housing than the legacy saber she has broken.  He briefly wondered where that has gone, or why she hasn't just let him have it. 

 

Or why she armed him with his after being knocked unconscious by the blast on the Supremacy.

 

He mentally glosses over the political intricacies of what actually happens in a coup, and moves to her next point.  He stiffens as she steps closer. Any moment now, she can ignite her saber. But she won't, deep down he knows that. She wants to see him after all, admitted with a bite of her lower lip. 

 

Kylo looks to the stones and then looks behind him.  He nods towards his Knights. “Start walking. She's easy to disarm,” he says, reassuring them more than himself.  Rey won't do anything. They all turn and leave, walking towards the expanse of property that loomed in their periphery.  

 

“I'm surprised Leia let you come.  Follow me,” he says. He has to practically force his mother’s name out, and he turns on his heel. Kylo resists looking back at her, trusting her around his vulnerable spine.  One ignite and he can be gone, but she isn't that stupid. 

 

“'I assume Leia told you about the significance of Naboo?” he asked.  Rey has to know that this is the origin of Padme Amidala, where Anakin Skywalker married, conceived his children with her, begetting the Skywalker legacy as the galaxy now knows them. 

 

Rey does follow him, but her cheeks heat at the implication that she  _ isn’t  _ an adult perfectly capable of making her own choices. 

 

She rebukes his sentiment with a huff, “Leia didn’t  _ let  _ me. She can’t stop me from doing what I think is right. She didn’t even try, for what it’s worth.” She’s not sure what that’ll mean to him, so Rey keeps herself from talking about his mother at length. 

 

Only,  _ Kylo  _ keeps asking questions, and she’s not inclined to lie. “She told me bits.” Leia has seemed more wistful, almost sorry that it isn’t she who came here under the guise of amicability. Rey wonders, briefly, what would have happened if the General has tagged along, but she understood why she hasn’t. 

 

What with  _ this  _ being a terrible idea and all. 

 

Rey fidgets, walking slowly, and tugging the long hem of her tunic down. The climate here is cooler than she is accustomed to, wind kicking up off the lake and clouds sifting, tufts of pink and purple through the saturated sky. It’s hypnotic, but she’s chilly and distracted by the floral scents carried in by every passing breeze.  

 

“That it belonged to her mother, Padme. And that it is ...” She pauses, trying, and failing, to school her expression and voice into something impassive. “It is where she fell in love. Where she ruled and fought for the Republic.” 

 

_ This  _ is dramatically different -- a gaggle of first order’s defects and the resistance’s failed Jedi. She’s immediately distracted by the beautiful landscape, the architecture clearly born of someone’s attention to detail, there is love in the stone foundation, Rey can feel it in the force. 

 

“It’s beautiful here, nonetheless.” As all of those preceding facts are dead and buried. They’re only here because it is the best place that fits all of their needs.

_ Or something.  _

 

She thinks. 

 

“Where will I be staying?” 

 

Kylo is impressed that his mother told the truth, or at least part of it. Padme did fall in love here, they did consummate their marriage here.  

 

But Anakin has also fought with temptation here, began  to slip over to the dark through the enchanting summers in Varykino.  No pretty sky or beautiful wife saved him from it. 

 

Just like nothing can save him.  

 

But simply because  _ he  _ is gone, did not mean the need for peace or Rey  _ is _ .

 

He walks alongside Rey easily, matching her gait.  He looks over at the inquiry about where she will stay. “Speaking of Padme, and to answer you, you'll be staying in her bedroom. I'm down the hall in the master,” he says.  

 

The master bedroom is even eerier than he expected, the walls holding so much pent-up emotion.  It felt liable to rush out at him at any moment. He didn't figure he would sleep much here since he never slept all that well  _ anywhere _ . But Rey can still have peace, unbothered by the demons rolling around in her body. 

 

He reaches for a door blindly, wrenching it open into the airy sitting room. Cream couches were positioned by the floor to ceiling windows, a chaise lounge right up against one to look out. It has been untouched since the last time he was here, meticulously kept up with by maids and several groundskeepers.  It smelled clean, almost sterile. 

 

“Follow me,” he states, walking to the doors that led out to the balcony.  Kylo opens them, stepping out into the cool twilight air. The suns were beginning to set, and he leans over the railing to stare at the lake. 

 

“You ever see a lake before?” he asks, despite knowing the answer before Rey replies.

 

Now’s really not the time for her juvenile, closeted wonder - but Rey can’t help how her lips part in surprise, nor the soft sound of awe that slips past them as she rakes her wide eyes over the spectacle that is the room. 

 

All of that, of course, is dwarfed the moment they step foot out on the balcony, the landscape a blur of watercolor light - pinks, purples, the sky is bruised with twin suns sitting low, fat on the horizon where jewel toned hills are capped in clouds, and a lake splits the distance between them. 

 

“It’s magical.” She doesn’t  _ directly  _ answer his question, but in part hopes that her captivation by a sight that might be  _ familiar  _ to him, yet  _ foreign _ , magical to her, would tell him more than a ‘yes’ can ever. Rey stands beside him, arms clasped behind her back and her gaze swinging from the lake in question, to rove over the once  _ Supreme Leader, _ once Ben Solo .... now, just a man. 

 

“There’s no green on Jakku. There’s no blue. There is beige and pink and sometimes the sky is dusty but ... I has never seen color, not really. Not like this.” Despite the war breathing down their backs, Rey smiles, eyes reflecting the sunset and the chill off the water coalesces with the warmth of a sun’s rays. 

 

“How often did you come here? When you were younger?” She knows they have tactical things to discuss, armistice and peace treaties to formulate, but right now, she’s not going to acknowledge those things. 

 

_ Right now _ , they’re two people and this is the first time in months she’s been able to breathe.

 

Her wonder sends ripples and waves through the Force, ones that he can feel but not accept.  He can't, his DNA not allowing even the slightest chance.

_ Or so he thought.   _

 

It would make him weak if he did. Kylo looks at her, at her roving gaze, away from him and then to the sky.  Her eyes are bright, almost luminous as she comments on the colors. They get to him too, reminding him of sweeter times and sugary treats from his mother.  _ Too soft _ , he chastises himself.  

 

He thinks of his mother sending him away, of his father leaving.  It conjures the ebb in his gut. Better. 

 

“A week a summer until I went away to study with…Skywalker.” He says. Almost saying,  _ Luke _ .  

 

Kylo looks at the water, at the glassy reflection of the palatial estate behind them. Kylo chances a step closer to her, closing the gap to a more personal distance.  

 

“I used to spar out here at sunrise.  Might start that again.” He comments. 

 

Kylo can’t help but stare at her, so close. So peaceful already, despite the harsh realities that lay before them.  Another life, another chance perhaps. _ Wrong again. _  He is weak for thinking so, and he white knuckles the railing to the balcony until pain comes back a familiar sting.

 

“Ah.” 

 

Rey wants to apologize for a past that she has no hand in, for faults that belonged to neither of them. 

 

Kylo Ren has been through an enormity of trials, he’d been forged in fires of adversity that she can not have withstood the heat of. Rey, born of bone bleaching sun and a desert’s unrelenting hardship, she knows what it means to suffer, but he’s safe, and suffering still. 

 

Her eyes fall to his knuckles, and she represses the compulsion to smooth her fingers over his hands, to make him feel better. She knows she can’t, so she leans forward with her elbows on the railing. 

“I’d be happy to spar with you or your ... knights.” Truth be told, no one in the resistance can hold their own against her, and Rey’s grown  _ soft  _ in the time following her own training -- not that Skywalker has sparred, or given her genuine insight into the ways of the force. 

 

She’d need to be sharp, face down the oncoming war with ferocity, not weakness; the tenderness of girlhood must be lost. 

“I --- we should get started.” Because she needs to be doing something other than staring at him like he’s the setting sun and not the mosaic dusk behind him. 

 

Kylo steps away from the railing when she asks to spar with him and his Knights, something he glances at her with incredulous scrutiny over.  Did she  _ really  _ want to spar with him?  After almost killing him on Starkiller, or aiding him in Snoke’s throne room? 

 

“Surely Skywalker let you…” he starts, before stopping.   _ Of course _ , he won't. Skywalker feared her power like he feared Ben’s.  

 

Kylo recalls the story of what happened in the cave.  How Luke lied to her about what he’d done to his own flesh and blood. 

 

“The Knights might kill you.”He remarks.  She is new to this, a  _ fledgling  _ in the Jedi Order.  He wants to build her, make her into something for which she has always been destined. He wants to do so with his own two hands. But her words turn to the real reason why they’re here.  

 

Kylo stands in deep thought, trying best to articulate his feelings.  He finally settles to glance at her. 

 

“The galaxy has already gone through factions like the First Order and the Resistance.  Both claim to be the cure-all to an oppressive regime, but in turn, oppress. Whether by killing the Jedi, the Sith…” he trails off.  

 

Sith is his way, more preferred than the teachings of Skywalker and his old books. “Something new needs to be born from this.” He finishes finally, after watching the wind blow little ripples across the lake.  It isn’t as easy to conceive as saying it aloud. 

 

“If they’re anything like you by way of  _ skill  _ I won’t have any issue.” She practically hisses, but it devolves into something less accusatory as he continues on, and Rey’s forced to play the part of a neutral listener. 

 

This is  _ not  _ her forte, quite clearly, but she really is trying, for what it’s worth. Rey folds her arms over her chest tightly, opposite hands clasping at her elbows and fingers pressing into the sleeves of her tunic. It’s her turn for her knuckles to go a bit white, but it’s not the pain that empowers - it does, however, succeed in distracting her. 

 

She listens, lets him speak his piece and yet once he’s done, Rey’s inclined to  _ agree _ . “The Republic let slavery persist, and the Empire killed innocents. There is good and bad in all things, in every  _ one  _ .” Pointedly, Rey sighs, running her fingers through her hair and freeing it from the solitary bun she wore it in. 

 

“You’re right,” Rey says it so quietly she’s certain that the same wind he watches, would carry her words away. She relaxes her posture a bit and tilts her chin to look up towards him. 

 

“How do we start something new? How do we build from two entirely broken things? I --- I’m not a politician, Ben. I’m not a Jedi. And unless someone’s outlawed human trafficking in the last six months, I’m technically still Plutt’s  _ property _ .” She sort of hates that it’s true, that she tells it to him and most of all that her eyes sting with tears. 

 

Rey wants to help, she’s almost  _ desperate  _ to, but Rey also is without the education he’s been afforded, political, historical, and that of the Jedi. 

 

“I’ll help you. But I’m not a Sith, and I never will be.” 

 

He’s shocked she lets him speak, uninterrupted and actually looking as if she were listening.  Rey’s  _ comprehension  _ of it is a different story entirely.  

 

The senator’s son always forgets that others were not as politically minded, not focused on any particular leadership role.  With his bloodline of Organa and Amidala and his constant competition with Hux, he has an uncanny political inclination. It seems to be ingrained in him to be a leader. But the world did not  _ want  _ Kylo Ren in a position of power, that much is obvious.  

 

How can he, a weakened Sith (never a master of any _ thing _ ), lead any _ one _ ? 

 

He wants to reach to her, to hush her or console her.  Rey will never be a slave again after this, Kylo will make sure to kill whoever has forced her to the  _ cruelest stroke _ .  

 

He will make them pay, blood running from their eyes and mouth until he is satisfied. “I don’t expect you to be Sith.  You’re too…” he trailed off. Too good? Too  _ light _ ?  Kylo senses darkness in her, sometimes flowing more than usual around him.  It is like she is trying to compete with his own energy, hers a higher-pitched thrum in comparison. 

 

“We feed off pain, in the ways of Sith.   _ You  _ don’t.” He finally explains, turning around and walking off the balcony. 

 

“Ideally we would start a new order with an alliance.  Something unbreakable.” He broaches then, making sure not to look at her. Snoke has always commented about First Order women,  _ mocked  _ him for the need for an arranged marriage someday. 

 

He isn’t thinking exactly that, he can't subject her to what can only be described as concubines or arranged marriages 

 

Rey contemplates that for a long silente while; the only sound wind sifting through her robes and the occasional caw of a faraway bird. Pain isn’t a source of  _ strength _ , not directly, but it’d forged Rey into the woman she is today.  _ Jakku _ , a place where weakness goes to die, the backbone of her fortitude made in the belly of a desert, on the crests of dunes and ridges, baking under an unforgiving sun. 

 

“No. I don’t  _ use  _ pain. But that doesn’t mean I’m free of it.” Softly, Rey doesn’t want to discredit a view he has simply because she herself does not share it. The Jedi were no more a home for her than the Sith, and she’s not about to proclaim herself a member of either. 

 

She chews on the inside of her cheek, hazel eyes far away, scouring the horizon for answers, “What sort of alliance is unbreakable ?” Her familiarity with history, while minimal, hasn’t painted a pretty picture of previous attempts at the armistice.

 

“I’d be happy to help in whatever way I’m able. Which is in an admittedly small few.” Rey looks a bit shamefaced at that, knowing he is better outfitted than anyone she’s ever met to lead, perhaps only second to Leia -- she has the intellectual wherewithal to not mention  _ that _ , at least. 

 

“Where do we start?” 

 

She asks what is unbreakable and Kylo almost flinches.  

 

Why doesn’t he want to say it?  

 

It has happened many times before in the royal families, where heirs are of utmost importance. But he can’t make it roll off his tongue.  

 

Kylo stops walking, back still to her.  He can’t look at her, but he  _ can  _ feel her echoes.  Shame and regret, but also curiosity. It isn’t bad, it isn’t anything that would make him run.  But she has abandoned him, has turned him down in the past. 

 

Can he trust her after that?  Can he believe her after she cast him into the wind?   _ Their  _ future? Too many theirs.  He shakes his head free of thoughts and takes a deep breath. Then he answers.  

 

“Marriages.  Hard to break except for death or betrayal.” He says.  Political marriages were dicey, typically arranged in eons past.  Sometimes they ended with death or prosperity. 

 

He moves onto the next subject. “You can help me by cutting off the head of the snake in the First Order.  Hux can’t be allowed to live any longer.” He says. Kylo needs manpower for that, and it is something that he can simply do.

 

That doesn’t mean he would join the Resistance, however.  He knows, deep down, he never can. 

 

“How we do that is beyond me.” He then says, looking at the stones.  He starts walking again. “Come inside with me. I’ll show you to your room.” Kylo calls over his shoulder.  

 

The feelings of intimacy that bleed from the cracks of the foundation has gotten to him finally, making him uneasy. 

 

Marriages on Jakku were rarities; Rey’s only insight into relationships at all were the visiting traders, or slavers, from other systems. 

 

She frowns a little, introspection a disservice at present, and so she shucks it off with a passing shiver. “If it  _ helps _ , it cannot  _ hurt  _ to come back to that point later.” 

 

Rey shrugs, she’s oblivious to the identity of the bride, and groom -- even as Kylo’s discomfort ebbs into their bond, Rey’s naivety, and youth, triumph over clarity of sight. 

 

“It makes sense -- marriage, I mean.  _ Politically _ , but I understand why it is hardly practical for now.” Again, she’s left to babbling about things she doesn’t quite yet comprehend. 

 

Rey thumbs the hem of her tunic, frowning at where it frays, “You want me to help you kill Hux?” She’s not the moral superior, Rey has killed when and where necessary, and this definitely  _ qualified _ . Her familiarity with the Grand Marshal is admittedly minimal, but she’s not about to flaunt her ignorance and gauges Kylo’s bubbling rage as the telltale of how she should feel towards him. 

 

She rearranges her features, as stoic as she can manage but there’s unmistakable fire in her eyes when they route up to his, stopping him by way of a hand on his wrist.  _ Gentle _ , always gentle, touch is a luxury neither of them has been afforded. 

 

“Finn knows the machinations of the First Order, he can hash out a plan and we can sneak on board, just you and I, and end this before the War has a chance to truly start. The longer we wait, the stronger Hux becomes. If there’s one thing I  _ do  _ know, Kylo, it is the monstrosities of man, and what they’re capable of.” 

 

She lets him go, and walks past him, into the open air bedroom. Rey skitters to a stop, eyes wide, round, once more overcome with that childish wonder, “It really is so beautiful here.” Her heart hurts. 

 

How can places like  _ this  _ exist alongside Jakku? 

 

Her hand touches his and nothing else seems to matter now, the air seeming to turn humid and electric.  It felt like before a storm, uneasy and wrong. This is wrong, what they were plotting and planning is  _ wrong _ .  But it is the only solution he can find for a problem like this. 

 

Rey mentions something about Hux that he doesn’t fully acknowledge.  He has to hold her back, for now, Kylo not ready to make any moves. 

 

“Hux knows every military plan in the book.  He’s impossible to lure. We’d have to go to him if we have a prayer of killing him.” He says.  He stares at the mirror as she does, watching her reflection. Rey isn’t a Jedi, and he isn’t ever fully a Sith.  

 

They were the wrong people to be making war decisions, but they seem to be the only option now.  Kylo stares at the stone floor, his hand drifting from hers as he moves to look out the window. 

 

“You’re helping by just existing.  _  Keep existing _ .” He whispers, under his breath. He turns to look at her then, feeling the overwhelming need to leave. 

 

The feelings of intimacy were wearing on him, breaking his psyche and body down to a molecular ache.  

 

“I’ll spar with you tomorrow when you wake.” Before she can agree, or even disagree, he walks to her bedroom door. He stops though before he opens it.  

 

“Sleep well, Rey," Kylo says, quietly.  He sincerely means it. He opens the door and walks out then, shutting it quietly behind him. 

 

How is he supposed to talk of  _ peace  _ when he can't even handle the memories that stain the force, thick with love, with war and heartbreak. 

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Comments, Kudos, thoughts and blurbs as ever are appreciated.
> 
> Thank you to all who read, and we wish you luck as we write a journey into Episode Nine.
> 
>  
> 
> A note from Luna: chapter twooooo!!! thoughts, feelings, anything can be messaged to me on tumblr, @filmhoeluna. love you babes and thank you for all the love on the last chapter. <3


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